APU POLS210 WEEK 1 AND WEEK 2 FORUM

This Forum has 2 parts, the first being required and the second being optional.

Required (for grade):

AFTER reading the Lesson 2 readings this week, which address numerous historical political campaigns, please answer the following question.

What changed, if anything, in the American political culture between 2004 and 2012? This was a period that saw the reelection of two very different presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Be sure not just to describe the issues that were important in the 2004, 2008 and 2012 elections, but analyze whether or not there were differences in the way that the candidates campaigned and in the American electorate.

Feel free to utilize external resources analyzing the 2008 election, such as:

http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/
http://www.npr.org/templates/topics/topic.php?topicId=1102

While the 2012 election happened only recently, there are some web sources which you might want to consult:

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2012/
http://www.politico.com/2012-election/


Optional (no grade):

Feel free to test your own political orientation (liberal, conservative, libertarian, populist) with this online survey. If so inclined, feel free to share your results.

The site is:http://www.politicalcompass.org/

Post by 11:55 pm (ET) on Friday; include citations or URLs for your work to receive full credit; and, provide substantive replies to the posts of at least 2 of your classmates by 11:55 pm (ET) on Sunday.


Assignment responses should be no less than 300 words and no more than about 500 words, while student replies should be no less than 150 words and no more than about 300 words.

Remember that Wikipedia and Uncyclopedia are content free sources that anyone can edit, therefore they are not recognized in this class as a reliable source.